Do you believe Jesus ever existed?

It's a great cover story. Look. Let's say you're Simon Peter and for the past year or so you've been hanging around with this intinerint preacher, one of many roaming around the Dead Sea area, one of many, ut this guy seems to have his head on straight unlike that Baptist guy who ended up headless. Anyway, things are good.

You and the guys travel from town to town and, oh did I tell you his name, it's Jesus, regular guy, grew up doing woodworking and I guess studying the bejesus, you'll forgive the expression, out the Torah because this guy can stump any of those so-called scholars gathered around your local prayerhall. He talks as if anyone can be holy. Holy cow. That's new. and that we must love each other in order to be right with God. That's new too. and lots of other stuff that the people just eat up because - what is it? -- he makes holiness seem reachable. Hey, even for a couple of whores and that's saying something.

Anyway, he gets himself knocked off. Whacked by the cops. So, it's over right?

uh uh uhnn. You tell people that the beat goes on. Not because he's gone, but because before he left he showed up alive. Yeah, that's the ticket. Alive as you and me, top that Headless John.

Joe(luckily, some would say, they bought it)Nation

Joe, I was once asked if I could have any imaginable "super" power, what would it be? Naturally, being me, I took about three months to come up with an answer. I want to travel to any place/time in history and find out what really happened, just to see and hear, but not be able to interfere in any way. (It would change the future from now on of course, due to my knowledge but not the past)

I think Simon/Peter would be my next stop after Jesus, Moses and JFK.

I might start a new thread on the "superpower" thing.

Jewish tradition has it that Moses wrote the Torah from knowledge he received from God.

Joe's on the right track. Here's the thing: the message of this Jesus wasn't really all that original. The Golden Rule thing -- "love thy neighbor..." etc, etc, -- as well as the admonition that you don't need to follow the strictest minor details of all the Jewish laws of worship had been proposed before. By a dude named Hillel. Rabbi Hillel who lived a couple of hundred years before Jesus. The story goes that some Palestinian -- they called 'em Philistines back then -- had laid a challenge to Hillel. "I'll become a Jew," the dude had allegedly said, "if you can explain all of the Torah to me while standing on one foot." Hilel, reportedly, raised one foot off the ground and said, "Don't to anybody what you wouldn't want done to you and love God above all. That's all there is. The rest is just commentary."

There is no record as to whether this Philistine did actually convert to Judaism.

The point, however, is that Jesus did no more than alter Hillel's message a tad. Instead of saying "Don't do...", Jesus said, "DO unto others..." etc. Subtle little change, but significant. Significant, but not enough to assure the kind of immortality that his disciples sought for him. That immortality was achieved, in part, by the resurrection story. As Joe said, you tell the people that the beat goes on.

And it sure is going on, 2,000 years later. It goes on to the amazing degree that the entire wrold -- people who pray to heaven-knows-what or people who do not pray or believe -- use the supposed date of Jesus time on earth to measure their years by. Pretty amazing for somebody who never even existed, if that's what you choose to believe.

Good on you, Merry Andrew. Hillel was the first rabbi I ever heard of, I was lucky enough to have Paul Kreppel for a roommate for a year or so at Emerson in Boston circa 1965. We amazed each other at how much Judaism had survived the centuries imbedded in the words of Christ.

And before I say another word, Timber deserves a round of applause for his lengthy, well written and informative post a few pages back. (applause) Good on you, Timber, well done.

I'm not much of a formal Christian anymore. They, and my brother the pastor priest is horrified and scandalized when I say this, they have made loving life and loving God too complex. Too many rules about eating or not eating fish on Fridays, who has or had or may have the inside track on holiness, sacramental or just mental, and what is the path anyway?

I rely on you, Andrew, and I rely on you, Timber, to help me haul in the sails of my immortality.. My soul floats on the tenter hooks of love and loving in an unloving world. That's all Jesus was trying to say, that's all Mohammed, may his name be holy, was trying to say, that's all that Gautama, the Buddha for all humankind, was trying to say. My soul hangs in mid-air while in life and love connects me to every other hanging soul in eternity.

Now, you want to know if some dusty preacher named Jesus figured out that loving all those you meet, touch, converse with, pass on the street, see in a newscast, read about in books, experience first second and third hand really existed?

Take a walk to your bathroom, my sister, take a walk to your bathroom, my brother, look ...... there.... in the mirror.....


Joe( I am a sounding brass) Nation

Materialgirl wrote on page 2
Is this your observation about the well off "Brylcream Preachers"? These telethon doomsday send in your money or they're gonna pull the plug, shuckin and jivin, white patent leather, thousand dollar suit, wives wearin diamonds and gold with the hair piled up high and makeup on real thick like, type make me sick. I am a Christian and get sick of what some of these husksters do "in the name of Jesus". Sorry, but their message does not fly in the third world countries where thousands starve and there is little food or good water to drink. Give me the humanitarian Christians like the Band "Jars of Clay" that have raised thousands of dollars to have wells drilled in African villages so the people there can have clean disease free water to drink. (I think they are up to around 400 wells now) These guys can sleep at night. This might not fly with some of you out there but if you take care of the body then the soul will follow. Take care of the person on a personal level and if you are better off than someone else use your resources to help meet their need physically. Do you think some poor villager in Africa suffering from AIDs or any of a multitude of other diseases care if he gets a "healing hankerchief" that has been dipped in water from the Jordan river that the slick back hair TV preacher personally dipped out of the Jordan while he was on a cruise? Just send in a donation now But ya know they are so blind they can sleep well at night too.
Sorry about the rant and being off topic and all but I just had to get that off my chest or I was gonna explode. Nite y'all. :wink:

BTW Materialgirl, I wasn't dissin' you at all. That was a keen observation you made, Thanks

We think alike.Im glad you feel better.

Did Jesus exist? Is our calendar timeline divided up as B.C. and A.D.? :wink:

hmmm, how do those hucksters sleep at night? Better than the pope did I expect.

I agree that Jesus existed but to do so based upon our calendar is stupid.

It was inventing in the year 525 by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus who would have little idea more than you or I whether or not Jesus existed. In fact he probably would have had less.

It didn't even catch on until two centuries later. That's seven hundred years after the facts of the matter became covered in the shrouds of mystery.

I didnt understand that.

Something big must have happened 2000 years ago in order for he majority of the world to have the same dates each day/year.
So are you saying somebody from say the 12th century decided year 1 would be when Jesus exsisted?Would that be from when he was born or died?

I have to say re the Pope his beliefs ie no to contraception,are very outdated.I know its a religion with certain ways of doing things but banning contraception is a big no no in this day and age.I hope they seriously consider changes in the near future.